When ‘Easy’ Isn’t the Goal

It is 2 July, 2025. Eann, my second son, just shut his spelling book for the night. His eyes flickered with that mix of hope and worry that only a child who wants to do well feels. A week ago, he sat at the dinner table calling himself “the dumb student” in his class. He would slump his shoulders and announce it like it was already carved in stone. Now, just seven days later, he wants full marks. Not because someone forced him. Not because he wants to prove anything to me. Because he decided that this piece of tough is worth holding.

I sit with him every night now, from 7:30 to 8:30pm. One hour of spelling drills, stories, practice, reminders, mistakes. One hour of seeing him trip over a word, close his eyes, open them again and say, “Can we do it one more time?” I am tired when it is done. Some nights I still have work waiting. Some nights I just want to lie down and be silent. But I do it anyway. Because this is the kind of tired that roots me. And roots him.

We All Live in a Quadrant

If someone asked me what leadership is really about, I would not draw an org chart first. I would draw this quadrant. Four squares that hold the invisible map of a life.

Draw the Y-axis. Easy life at the top. Hard life at the bottom.

Draw the X-axis. Meaningless on the left. Meaningful on the right.

Top left. Easy but meaningless. This is the drift zone. A place where you go through each day chasing comfort, numb from the cost, happy in the moment but empty over time.

Bottom left. Hard and meaningless. This is the misery zone. Where you wake up to a job that eats your spirit, people who drain you, systems that run you down but never fill you up.

Top right. Easy and meaningful. This is the paradise we all imagine, but it rarely stays. There are seasons when life does feel smooth and deeply rooted at once. But by nature, humans do not stay here for long.

Bottom right. Hard but meaningful. The quadrant few people talk about, but the one I will stand in again and again. The quadrant where roots grow.

Eann’s spelling test is one tiny version. The late night cries of Arielle, my newborn, are another. Sleeping for 2 hours the day she was born. And I remind myself that this is the tough that will become stories she carries long after I am gone. This is the tough that grows us both.

Why Humans Never Stay in Paradise

One thing we forget when we long for an easy life is that humans were not designed to sit still forever. A lion after a hunt sleeps half the day under the shade of a tree. Dogs you feed every day do not need to hunt or think. But humans? Look at any moment in history. We have never stayed content.

Stanford researchers call this productive discontent. It is a beautiful tension wired into our biology. Our dopamine pathways do not just reward rest, they reward progress. This is why once you climb one hill, you look for the next. This is why people who win the lottery often spend it all, because easy pleasure without anchored meaning does not root you. It scatters you.

This is why a civilization that once hunted wild boars now sends people to Mars. We are built to advance. But the paradox is this. Advancement without anchoring our meaning becomes dangerous. I see it in the strange corners of the world. People spending millions to freeze time and never grow old. Others reshape their faces to look like wild animals because staying human feels boring. People chase more and more and never ask why. In the end, they forget the cost their ancestors paid for every easy thing we now take for granted.

My grandparents would call me a king if they saw how easily I tap an app to feed my family. How I sleep under a roof without fear of tigers at night. But we forget. Gratitude fades the longer we live in the easy.

When the System Fails to Hold the Story

A Stellarian friend texted me just yesterday. She moved to Singapore years ago. Better pay. Better system. Better security. She said, “Congratulations on baby Arielle. I know how tough those sleepless nights are. It will pass soon.”

I read her words and something in me wanted to answer honestly. I do not want it to pass too soon. I want to stay here. Smell Arielle’s hair. Hold her when she cries. Watch my wife doze off with her hand on our daughter’s tiny back. That is the tough I want. The one that reminds me that life is not built by skipping the messy parts.

We all drift sometimes. We see a chance to move to a cleaner system, a better salary, a more comfortable shell. There is nothing wrong with that if you know your target. But I have watched too many people come back later, older, telling me, “I realise now I gave up my roots for a comfort that did not last.” That is why ‘Once a Stellarian Always a Stellarian’ must never be just a tagline on our wall. It must be built into the bones of the system. The way we hold each other when things get hard. The way we remind each other why we are here. Without it, people come home but find no home waiting.

When Tough Turns Toxic

Not every tough is worth staying in. There is a danger in telling people to just push through if the tough is not meaningful. The World Health Organisation reported that one in three healthcare workers faced severe burnout during the pandemic. Many quit. Many more are still recovering. But their own data also showed that those who could tie their daily exhaustion to a clear sense of purpose were forty percent less likely to leave. Same twelve hour shifts. Same chaos. But a completely different anchor.

This is the biology of eustress. Good stress. When your sacrifice is tied to something worthy, your body can transform the drain into resilience. The brain literally grows new pathways for handling pressure. But when the tough has no meaning, when you grind for a system you do not believe in, or people you cannot trust, that same stress floods you with cortisol. It eats you alive.

So do not confuse tough with worthy. A life of hard but meaningless drains you to the bone. A life of hard but meaningful feeds you.

Gratitude as a Guardrail

I remind myself of this daily. Easy is not the enemy. It is ingratitude that is the trap. If you forget how much you already hold, you will chase more easy and find less life. Gratitude is what reminds you that your ancestors paid a high price for the comfort you stand on. It is what grounds you when your head tells you to drift.

Okinawa’s elders live longer not because they escaped struggle, but because they chose the same meaningful tough for decades. A farmer at one hundred and one still grows vegetables every morning. They do not stop. They do not say, “I have earned a free pass now.” They know rest without purpose quickly turns to drift.

How to Find Your Target

So how do you know which tough is worth it? Eann’s is simple. “I want full marks.” He can see his target. For most adults, the target is covered up by noise. Busy schedules. Deadlines. People pleasing. Fears. So you need a practical tool to dig for it.

Try the Five Whys. Start with your surface goal. “I want this job.” Why? “For the money.” Why does that money matter? Keep going until you hit something that makes your chest tighten. That is the center.

Try 5W1H. Who is this for? What does success look like? When must it happen? Where is the cost paid? Why does it matter? How will you know it is enough?

Do not stop at the first answer. Keep digging. If your tough does not have a target, you will burn out and blame the world. If you see the target clearly, the same cost becomes a gift you chose.

The Malaysia and Singapore Paradox

Many parents debate it. Is it better to stay where things are messy, or go where life is more predictable? Singapore feels cleaner, safer, more advanced. I understand why people move. Sometimes, that is the right choice. But the question is not just which country looks easier. It is which place holds the tough that will root me and my children in a way that outlives me.

Some people will go. Some will stay. Some will come back. And when they do, I want Stellar to be more than an office. I want it to be a system that holds them through every season of drift and return.

The Bedtime Ritual that Outlives Me

Every night at 8:30pm, when Eann worries he will forget his words, I remind him that forgetting is not failure. The only failure is refusing to get up and spell it again. Arielle will not remember these nights in detail, but the bond will live in her bones. That is the kind of tough I want. The one that outlives my body. The one that shows my children how to choose their own.

When I am gone, and they stand at their own crossroads, a job they hate, a relationship that depletes them, a chance to trade hard roots for easy drift, I hope they ask better questions. What will this tough give me in return? What is my real center? Am I grateful enough to see how much I already hold?

The Reverse That Redefines It All

The opposite of a tough life is not a happy life. It is an empty one.

Humans were never made to lie still in paradise forever. We are builders. We are farmers of legacy. But only if we anchor what we build to purpose. So choose your tough well. Stay grateful. Never forget the price that made your easy possible.

When you drift, pause. Ask why. Dig five times if you must. Remember what is worth the sleepless nights. And choose it again and again.